The best is yet to come

It's all coming back to me now

- January 11th 2025 -

"What?!" Leslie asked probably thirty seconds after her italian mother had finished speaking.

She didn't realize it but she was holding Treena's hand so tight that the younger girl was actually starting to feel a little pain. Leslie's brows were forrowed deeply, her eyes fixated on both her mothers.
She couldn't quite understand the feeling that was spreading in every nerve ending of her body. She couldn't quite picture if it were fear, resentment, anger of even just the pain of all those years suddenly floating back to the surface.
She wanted to cry or maybe scream, or even just shut the door to her mothers' faces. They must have had some nerve to actually think she would agree to her father's request.

"We're not saying you should, baby. We're just telling you." Maya whispered walking closer to her daughter's bed to sit on the edge.

"Then why even come to talk to me about it?" The girl asked still holding Treena's hand as her other clenched the clean sheets of her bed from under the blanket.

"We wouldn't want to keep that a secret from you. For how painful it must feel we know you'd want to know and you deserve to know." The italian explained still standing under the door's frame without getting closer to her daughter.

"I'm sorry I just...I really don't understand. Why would I care? Why would I care about a man that hurt me so deeply and so many times that I freak out going up the stairs without a light on?" Her eyes were already filling with tears but she started to bite her cheek to prevent them from falling. Not there. Not now.

"Don't you wanna hear what he has to say? For how hard it must be?" Maya asked her still trying to mantain a soft voice tone. "He's dying Leslie and I know, we know you well enough to be a hundred percent sure that you would regret it if you don't go and speak to him or just listen to what he has to say." The blonde tried to reach for her daughter's left hand, the one free from holding Treena's, but the girl immediately moved it out of her reach.

"I don't even want to hear it. Stop it." She spoke back, her voice calm but evidently tense. She closed her eyes shut, squeezing them so tight they almost hurt.

"Bambina please don't shut us out." Carina replied finally taking a step forward into the room searching for Leslie's eyes.

"I said stop it!" The girl yelled finally releasing Treena's hand. That made each one of them jump as the older girl shot up on her feet walking towards the door to hold it's handle.

"I want you to go out." She spoke still loudly. Neither of them complied instantly but Carina knew that look on her daughter's face too well to just remain in the room. She looked at Treena and gestured for her to follow them both outside. Maya got up from the bed and resisted the urge to simply hold Leslie tight in a hug before walking out of the room with her wife and her daughter's girlfriend.

The younger firefighter slammed the door closed and rested her back on it with a loud thump that the three heard from outside before slowly sliding to the ground with the head between her knees as the tears that had filled her eyes started to stream on her cheeks despite her effort to keep them in.

"Are you okay?" Maya asked once they were back in the livingroom and the brunette had collapsed sitting on the couch.

"Do you think I am?" She snapped immediately regretting it and taking hold of her wife's hand.

Treena was standing there, still looking up towards the stairs as if Leslie was about to come down with them any minute.
She asked herself if she would want to see her mother's lover again, after what he did to her. Since she had met Leslie she knew things had changed for her. She wasn't afraid of walking next to a man other than Mason anymore. She was actually enjoying life again after two years and even just the idea of that man coming close to her again was threatening this possibility of new life that she finally had ahead of her.